Today Pope Francis issued his highly anticipated encyclical Lumen Fidei. An encyclical (from the Greek enkyklios meaning “circular” or "general") is a letter sent by the pope for circulation among the bishops of the world or a particular region of the world. Encyclicals are used primarily for teaching and instruction in...

In my last blog post I examined the first of the four notes or marks of the Church—namely, unity. Today I would like to briefly examine the second defining mark or quality of the Church: holiness.

For many, the Catholic Church’s claim of holiness is quite provocative. After all, how can the Catholic Church possibly claim to be holy when her membership is made up of sinners? How can she claim to be...

During a recent speaking tour in Australia, my good friend and fellow apologist, Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, and I delivered a presentation on The Four Marks of the Church. Our tag-team talk was well received. Afterward, I was encouraged by a few of the participants to share some of my notes and citations with them. In light of their request and in light of my last blog post, I thought...

Over the past few months I have been struck by the number of times Pope Francis has reminded us of the indivisible relationship and union between Christ and his Church. On several of these instances he has quoted a passage that I have become familiar with over the years. It is taken from Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation, On Evangelization in the Modern World:

There is thus a profound link between Christ, the Church and evangelization. During the period of the...

My son Joshua recently celebrated his first Penance in anticipation of his first Holy Communion. He is the first of our five children to do so. Needless to say, it was a very special day for him and our family. As I mentioned in my last blog post, over the last few years he has expressed a true desire to partake of these sacraments. My wife and I have done our best to help him and his sibling to understand the beauty, meaning, and power of the sacraments, and whenever possible have used...

~ Marie-Anne Piedcourt (Sister of Jesus Crucified), choir-nun; to her executioner, on mounting the scaffold; one of the 16 Teresian Martyrs of Compiegne guillotined on July 17, 1794 in Paris during the murderous Reign of Terror.